Module description
This module aims to develop a knowledge and understanding of the English law of contract and the techniques of common law legal reasoning.
We all enter contracts every day whether it’s buying a cup of coffee, entering into your mobile phone contract or jumping on the tube to get to a lecture. The great thing about contract law is that, even if you never intend to practise in this area, your knowledge of contract law will come in very handy in your everyday life. Fortunately (or unfortunately) you will find that you become very popular with friends and family who want you to sort out their contract law disputes!
More generally a study of contract law provides an excellent foundation to an understanding of how case law works. In the English legal system, contract law is mainly based on case law, that is, previous case decisions made by the Supreme Court (formerly, the Judicial Committee of the House of Lords) and Court of Appeal. You therefore learn how case law works as a source of law, which involves inductive logic and living with uncertainty.
In the tutorials, the application of the legal rules to hypothetical factual situations (apart from being fun) is an excellent exercise in analytic reasoning and allows you practice in formulating arguments. Thus, both intrinsically and in view of transferable skills which you will acquire, study of the Elements of Contract Law is an excellent beginning to your Law Degree.
It is also the case that most of private law is either based upon or conducted by reference to Contract Law. A study of Contract Law allows you study (and practice) of law in these other areas.
Semester 1 begins with a consideration of those elements necessary to form a contract (offer and acceptance, consideration, third party rights, intention to create legal relations and incomplete and uncertain agreements). In the second part of the semester, we begin with an exploration of the question “what is a contract?”. We consider contractual terms (express and implied), exemption clauses and the legislative regulation of contractual terms.
Semester 2 starts with consideration of those elements which vitiate an apparent contract – that is – those factors which either prevent a contract from arising (mistake) or allow one of the parties the right to avoid a contract (misrepresentation, duress, and undue influence). The module concludes with an assessment of what happens when it all goes wrong. We are concerned here, primarily, with the discharge of contracts by frustration and breach and the remedial consequences which attend each of these events.
The four general components of this module are:
- Formative elements of a contract (term 1);
- Terms (term 1)
- Vitiating elements of a contract (term 2); and
- Performance, discharge and consequences (term 2).
Assessment details
Examination (70%); Essay (30%).
Teaching pattern
Lectures (2 x 1 hour per week); Tutorials (1 x 1 hour per week)
Suggested reading list
You are not expected to know any law before you begin at King's, however, should you wish to do some pre-reading the following texts are recommended for this module. Please do not purchase textbooks for your modules until you have begun your studies as they are subject to change.
- Textbook – Ewan McKendrick, J Beatson, A Burrows, J Carwright Anson’s Law of Contract, 30th ed (OUP 2016)
- Case book – E McKendrick, Contract Law, Text, Cases and Materials, 7th ed (OUP 2016)